You just need to have a Windows 10 device or Windows Server to manage it using RSAT tools. You could also have 5Nine Manager for Hyper-V, but that is more expensive than having a single Windows 10 Pro device. The reality is that the Windows 10 is only needed for console access to the VM. If you had pre-built VM images, or containers you might even be able to skip having any Windows.

You can argue that vCenter is more powerful than anything that Microsoft has that isn't part of System Center. You can also argue that all of the options you listed included tech support. On the Microsoft side you have working HA for clusters ranging from 2-64 hosts, host based backup APIs, up to 8000 VMs per cluster, and VMs that have up to 320 vCPU and 12 TB of RAM, and the ability to migrate running VM between hosts and clusters without the need for shared storage or identical CPU family and stepping. ALL FOR FREE.

I am still trying to figure out what the confusion is. Granted, I have been dealing with Microsoft NT since 1994, and Hyper-V in production since 2008. Maybe people are confused by thinking that System Center VMM is somehow required or even important. It isn't. SCVMM is fairly big and complicated. I have SCVMM, and about the only thing that it makes easier is to migrate VMs across incompatible Hyper-V versions, and nominally makes migrating VM storage and hosts easier. Otherwise I stay out of SCVMM.

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What's the situation? I use both in different environments and can't say I love one over the other. Now that I'm over the hump figuring out where everything is in Hyper-V vs. ESXi its becoming second nature.

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I have a DIY server on my home network running 3 VMs: an AD server, a file server, and a web/VPN server. I'm just wondering if I made the right choice for a hypervisor or if I should convert.

I'd rather not disclose which choice I'm using now so as not to sway voters.

Does your current hypervisor lack features or availability that another one would offer? This is especially true for a home lab if you're not specifically choosing one for a learning process.

I like Hyper-V just fine, I think it's easy and fairly intuitive for a windows admin to work with. I'm also pretty happy with what ESXi can do do for me in my professional work. I'm going to be building out my lab in a few weeks after I close on my new home and I'm still undecided on what I'm going to use for hypervisor. Both are totally sufficient for the 3-5 VMs I want to run and I would feel comfortable with either choice. I'd consider Xen, but I'm not interesting in learning it just to use it home and it currently has no professional dividends for me.

Small office/home build I'd say stick with what you have unless you find a compelling reason to change(learn new system, unhappy with current performance, bored with setup, etc).

As a school district we get some pretty crazy discounts :) Plus under HyperV if I license the host with Server Datacenter, plus System Center Datacenter licenses I can run those on any VM in running on those hosts with no additional cost.

Add into it Storage Spaces Direct instead of traditional SANs and our cross-datacenter licensing is seriously cheap, fast and very stable.

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I have a DIY server on my home network running 3 VMs: an AD server, a file server, and a web/VPN server. I'm just wondering if I made the right choice for a hypervisor or if I should convert.

I'd rather not disclose which choice I'm using now so as not to sway voters.

For that size network I don't think there is a wrong answer.

You "might" get some extra functionality out of Hyper-V as it will have options for Hypervisor level backups available (assuming you're using ESXi free which removes the API's for hypervisor level backups). Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

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10 years ago I’d have said esxi, hands down. At the time HV was a newcomer and we didn’t know it. At this point, I say Hyper V. It’s a mature and robust platform that offers everything esxi has without the added licensing costs.

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Depends what you're planning on spending on it. At the free level, ESXi wont' allow you to do VM-level backups, whereas Hyper-V will. On the paid level, ESXi is nice; alternatively Hyper-V is free and has no paid models.

Outside of price: I use Hyper-V now. I cut my teeth on ESXi. I found ESXi's interface nicer, but the price really pushed it over the edge. Performance-wise they're equal (as far as I use it for - I'm sure there are edge-cases).

Do yourself a favor. If it is a home lab, go to Ebay and get either versions "pro/Authentic" Keys for 15 bucks or less. I got mine for 9 dolla. ESXi Enterprise 6.7. No complaints after 3 months. I imagine I never will. (Look for the Keys that come from systems that have been recycled or that have been taken from machines that did not use the keys.)

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I would choose ESXi any day as long as its licensed with essentials plus or above. At my last job we used HyperV and I got so sick of troubleshooting weird, system down causing, bugs. There were multiple times where a simple action, like shutting down a VM would somehow cause the cluster to panic and VMs would be bouncing around hosts and most everything would grind to a halt. Now this was 4 years ago and I didnt setup that HyperV cluster and we were using some more advanced features, including VMs hosted on clustered shared volumes, but it was a total PITA.
I still use HyperV for really small, simple, 1 host setups. But for shared storage and critical business functions, I almost exclusively use ESXi.

For a home lab I'd go with hyper-v. For production I'd use esxi. I find that hyper-v interface is easy to use and understand, has all the basics for vm's. Esxi is more robust and is just my preference for enterprise production.

The great thing about the Hands-On Lab is that it's browser-based and you can explore VMware 6.7 without having to download or pay anything. If you need any help or have questions, please feel free to reach out!

this Sir - your survey is missing option other - qemu, kvm and few others - yes I rather to stick with any of them - for god sake even microsoft is using linux for their azure "switches"....

2nd part of question - why - well let's start with not limited possibilities many of features are available already on those platforms and slowly are getting used in yours - and you can customize everything 100% - reliability - and lastly associated cost - your time and knowledge vs $ which in this case you are winning two times - you save $ and learn new things !

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We currently manage both Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 and ESXi environments. I started out with Citrix years ago, then learned ESXi, and started working with Hyper-V in 2012, My personal preference is Hyper-V, and I always recommend it when setting up virtual environments from scratch, cost being the deciding factor: depending on the amount of hosts and CPUs Hyper-V saves the customer anywhere from $500 to several thousand dollars purchase price, plus the annual maintenance fees. There are a few things that ESXi does a bit better, e.g. storage management, but these generally don't justify the purchase.

My 2 cents: if you have a well-tuned production environment in any hypervisor, just leave it alone. If you're setting up from scratch or redoing the whole thing, switch to Hyper-V if you haven't already.

In my current business we are using both, ESXi runs really nicely and has alot of features. Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 of course being windows native is very simple to use but does not offer as many features as ESXi. I would say in today's day in age its preference.

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As a school district we get some pretty crazy discounts :) Plus under HyperV if I license the host with Server Datacenter, plus System Center Datacenter licenses I can run those on any VM in running on those hosts with no additional cost.

Add into it Storage Spaces Direct instead of traditional SANs and our cross-datacenter licensing is seriously cheap, fast and very stable.